


A New Perspective

by AceQueenKing



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU: Jane Keeps Some of the Aether during The Dark World/Endgame, Aether, F/M, Past Jane Foster/Thor, Pegging, Post-Endgame, Ritual Sex Required the Save the World, The Tesseract (Marvel), Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, morally gray loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-06 18:21:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20511422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Jane takes a deep breath as she goes into the room of the subject – appropriately numbered – as subject 666. Jane doesn’t believe in such ludicrous superstitious, of course, she is a scientist – but she is amused by Loki's cell number.Or at least, she would be, if her fate wasn't riding on what happens in this room.





	A New Perspective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lucifuge5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifuge5/gifts).

Jane takes a deep breath as she goes into the room of the subject – appropriately numbered – as subject 666. Jane doesn’t believe in such ludicrous superstitious, of course — she is a _scientist_ — but she is amused by Loki's cell number. 

She hasn’t gotten a lot of the story about how they finally captured Loki; the Avengers’ crew explained to her – patiently, as if she was an _idiot_ – that he had been captured in New Mexico, that somehow they had expected he would come here, that somehow they shot him with some sort of substance that was meant to render him immobile but had only kept him from teleporting. There was a lot of stress on the _secrecy_ of the rest, as if Jane was not used to non-disclosure agreements; like she would even care about their serum that a) did not work and b) was a biological compound utterly useless to her field. Stars did not require any sort of serum whatsoever. They didn’t want her here, that was obvious.

But she hadn't gotten here because of how they'd ambushed Loki. She had gotten involved because of what Loki had done _next_. His response to being captured by a full team of Avengers was, evidently, to _break open _the Tesseract, and _eat_ the space stone that rested within. First, they had tried Thor to convince him to give up the space stone first, but Loki had refused to see him and had become incensed when Thor, being Thor, attempted to bellow gently through the door. Evidently screaming insults through the doorway was not, in fact, a sign of progress.

And then, without any other options, Thor had evidently sheepishly offered up Jane, and now, here she is, the only other person with an infinity stone’s gunk running through her veins. Least it was convenient; they’d ambushed Loki in New Mexico, only a mile or two from where she had met Thor all those years ago. She had moved back only a few months ago, after the growing Aether in her body led to her abandon her London lifestyle for something a lot less...public. She doesn’t look at the eyes of the Avengers who have promised to seal her and Loki in if she fails to convince Loki to give up the space stone. Thor isn’t here, and she’s thankful for that.

Easier on them both, she thinks, to avoid that sign of normalization — not that much about Jane is normal, not anymore.

The Aether — a reminder, a permanent reminder of what happened to her the last time she was anywhere near Loki — itches between her fingers. 

He glares at her as she enters; the door whooshes shut behind her. He is bound in chains, titanium chains on both his feet, on both his hands. She almost pities him. 

“Loki,” she says; the man strapped to the table does best to look menacing, grinning at her with full teeth bared. It is what she would expect from him. 

“Jane Faster,” he grinds out. She can still see the marks of the heavy metal they must have had around his mouth. Thor has persuaded the avengers to get rid of it; Loki didn’t respond well to being caged, Thor had said, as sympathetic as he possibly could given all that Loki put them through. It was something she’d come to admire and find irritating in equal measure in Thor: he had a big heart, but — sometimes — his heart was too big, his soul too forgiving. Loki had done a lot to the world, and Jane Foster remembered.

“So you know who I am,” she says, coolly, sitting with a scientist’s austere grace at the edge of his bed. He tries to get up, makes a show of scrambling against the bolts. She isn’t convinced that he couldn’t break through, though Thor has told her titanium would hold him.

“Thor’s harlot, yes,” he says, grinning like the cat who got the cream. “My dear Jane, I had promised Thor I should pay you a visit. I did not think, however, you would be so eager to play host.”

“We’re just friends now,” she says; she isn’t in the mood to argue, and certainly not with someone that Thor has told her can turn into a literal snake instead of just a figurative one. “I understand that you’re a bit confused.”

“I’m confused about nothing, _Jane_,” he purrs, and oh, she does not like how he says her name: _Jaaane_. It is rich with purpose. This is the Loki who attacked New York; this is not the Loki who helped her and Thor with Marekith, and even then, only barely. She resists the urge to slap him again; been there, done that. Won’t do anything new. “My brother thinks your human forces can hold me. Quaint.”

“They can,” she says, not bothering to soften the blow. “We’re not the weaklings who you found in 2012.”

This is an important test – she has to know just how far this Loki has traveled. The space stone has made charting his movements unreliable, but Thor knows Loki well enough to guess where he’d go – and he was right. Jane tries hard not to worry about it being New Mexico, over a decade past when he’d left New York. As a scientist, she’d like to believe he doesn’t have the control; she wants to hypothesize that perhaps the stone is pulled toward other supernatural entities like the Bifrost. Whether it was Loki’s first stop or his latest is hard to tell; whether he chose it or just stumbled with the space stone as fast as he could – impossible.

Much to her relief – or perhaps not, she knows he is not a bad actor – Loki sneers. “I doubt you’ve done much in what, a couple of months?” Relief almost makes her sag, though she is very careful not to show too much of it. All she can hope is that this Loki, this 2012-Loki, does not know how to use the space stone as well as she knows how to use the Aether.

“It’s 2025,” she says, plainly. She pulls her phone out, shows him the date. He raises an eyebrow. “A lot has happened since Stark Tower.”

He says nothing for a long moment, then laughs. “Even I am aware a date on a simple device such as that can be easily faked. I am no stranger to _parlor tricks_, Jane.”

“I know.” She snaps. “We’ve met before, Loki. I’ve gotten to see a lot of those tricks.” And she has. She knows he’s very good at playing dead, at changing his spots; she knows he can lie, that he is a God of liars.

She knows too that he is her only hope, too, of ever leaving this room again, so she doesn’t insult him. He stares at her for a long moment. Then he says, almost quietly, “I think I would remember meeting you, _Jane_. Thor has had a lot of strumpets, but I have a _fantastic _memory.”

“You wouldn’t.” She shrugs. “Different timeline; different you. I slapped you, you faked your death, we stopped an apocalypse. Hesitantly, on your part, I would add.”

“Sounds fun,” he says, smiling like the wolf. “But I don’t believe you.” He gives her a rather blatant once over; Jane holds herself very still. “A little girl like you doesn’t have the _guts_ — “

She wordlessly holds up her hand and lets the Aether spark between it.

“Oh.” Loki smirks. “A little shadow-puppet show. How _convincing_.”

She puts it on his throat, lets the shadows of the sister-stone lick at him. Not enough to hurt — she needs him, as much as she’s wary about that — but enough to let him know it’s not just a parlor trick.

“Hm.” He laughs, a true villain’s laugh, ugly and full of sharp-notes. “Ticklish.”

She nods and withdraws. He watches every moment, she notes. Revealing the Aether has sparked his interest. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. What I need to know is simple, Loki. Why are you here?” Getting a true answer out of him, she suspects, will be harder than it seems, but she has to get a feel for his motives before she drops what she needs him to do on him. She suspects if she told him they had to fuck to save the planet, he’d wind up manipulating her.

“To pay you a visit,” he leers. “Ask my brother. I made a promise, little human. And whatever you’ve heard of me — and I’ve no doubt you’ve _heard_ of me — ”

“Bullshit.” She lets the Aether flow, wondering just how many people on the other side of the wall are taking notes about how it moves in her. She hates that; hates that she’s had to live with it for so many years now, hates that Thor gave her hope that it would dissipate, hates that it drove them apart, hates that she can’t even experiment on it, hates that it's turned her into a time bomb. She wonders, idly, if Loki hates being an outsider due to something in his blood beyond his control as much as she does.

“Maybe I was just looking for a way back, then.” She suspects that is closer to the truth — that he tried to seek out the Bifrost, by whatever means. Loki has no home but Asgard, even if he would never admit it. Even attempting to take Midgard was only a step in gaining the ultimate prize, the golden city he’d grown up in. She’s met small men like him before. “Throw my arms around my brother and repent, and be forgiven in tearful solemnity.” She doesn’t take the bait there, just stares at him and evaluates just how to tell him what he needs to hear.

Thor told her that Loki was the type who’d take any sort of pity as an annoyance at best and an irritation at worse. Best to rip the band-aid right off; what could it do beyond forcing him to display just what that space stone could do?

Well, she thinks, at least she’ll give the Avengers crew some data points if she winds up as a smear on the wall.

“Asgard is gone.” His eyes widen at that; he wasn’t expecting it. It lasts only a moment, but she sees a flash of something that might be hurt in those eyes – or is it just a hint of sadness at not being the one to light the old palace on fire, in the end? “The Bifrost is gone, too. Most of Asgard's citizens lay dead: Odin, Frigga, and Heimdall among them.”

Loki tilts his head back and laughs, the noise loud and shrill. “You’ve got a good imagination for a primitive monkey.”

She’s prepared for this; she pulls up a video on her phone, something she didn’t enjoy recording and something she wants to show him even less.

“Loki,” Thor says; Loki’s eyes snap to Thor and don't leave the video as Thor essentially repeats what she has already said; she can hear it Thor's comforting Asgardian accent sliding out of her old, long-cracked cell phone and seeing an image of his brother — fifteen years older — has clearly enraptured Loki. “_This is Jane, a friend_ –“ Loki rolls his eyes at that. “_She’s here to help you. You can trust her._” A put upon sigh. “_Loki, Asgard has fallen. Our people –“An_ open scoff there, a curl of his lip. “_—need your talents. I hope you listen to Jane, brother. I would like the sun to shine on us again.” _The last phrase, she knows, is a test, something to make sure this Loki isn’t the one that died on Thor’s ship. Thor won’t give up hope that he is.

But Jane can tell he isn’t; he’s a good actor but underneath the lip curl of deception, there’s a furrowed brow, a desperation for acceptance that the Loki Thor wants to be here wouldn’t have. “Turn it off,” Loki snarks, as Thor continues to tell him about all he’s missed. “I’m tired of that dog yapping on and _on_.”

She shuts it off; Thor slides back into the ether. She’s thankful he isn’t here, though he wanted to be in the beginning. Jane won that argument, since having your ex-boyfriend in the room while you’re having ritualized sex with his adopted brother to save your ass, his ass, and the entire world's collective assses is — well, it’s more variables than any good experiment needs. 

“What do you want from me?” He asks, and there’s a fine edge to his voice now, like one of those blades that Thor has told her he is so, so good at producing. She thinks he thinks she is telling the truth now; that’s progress.

“It’s complicated.” He smirks.

“Perhaps for an _ape_.” The look on his face suggests he wishes he had full use of his hands, so he could insult her further with some sort of rude gesture.

“I’m an astrophysicist.” She holds out a hand, lets the Aether fly through her fingers; it hums, almost comforting but for the audience outside these doors. “And since you decided it was a bright idea to swallow an infinity stone made of anti-matter, I’m the only other person in existence who can possibly understand what’s going through your body right now.”

She doesn’t like what she has to do, but she does it anyway: she unbinds his hand, places her palm against his own. She could do it with him bound, which would be safer, but Jane, ever the scientist, knows the more effective demonstration is one where he has some ability to change the variables.

She pulses a bit of the Aether into him, hopes that the people behind the glass aren’t taking notes. The Aether was supposed to be gone; it was supposed to kill her. Neither turned out true. She’s gotten better at controlling it, since she and Thor broke up; easier to handle the currents, the ebbs and flows of it, without an Asgardian looking at her like she’s failed for not meeting their expectations.

It takes a moment, but the spark of the space stone answers; it glitters, blinding-blue, against her darker red. It is _hungry;_ for half a seconds he feels him, really _feels_ him, blindingly, coldly, _instinctually_ _feels_ him — confusion, surprise, amusement, disdain, and for half a moment she feels an erotic thrill at the touch of another so similar to himself. He flicks his hand away, breaks the connection.

“Ah.” His eyes are wide, unusually so; she wonders if this is an act, him acting impressed so he can figure out how to steal the Aether from her. She wonders if he really is impressed, or unnerved, or if he’s read her like a book when his stone called against her own. “You are..._interesting_.”

“From you, I’ll take that as a compliment.” She sits next to him, oddly withdrawn, hands in her lap and unsure how to continue on in this experiment.

“It should have killed you,” he says, wonder in his voice – affected, perhaps, or not. “Fried you.”

“That’s what they told me, on Asgard.” She does not tell him that they thought they were successful in getting it out of her with Malekeith — this Loki wouldn't remember that. She doesn't tell him that she still remembers the soul forge, Odin, _Freya_. He does not know, and for the moment, he does not need to.

“Well,” Loki’s lips quirk into an amused grin. “Certainly not the first time my father has underestimated a _lesser_ form.” She detests how much pleasure he gets out of the thought that Odin might be wrong.

“Odin is dead,” she reminds him.

“So you’ve said.” He waves a hand. “You forget, _Jane_, that I am the god of lies, and have heard more than a few of them.” She imagines she, too, would have a hard time hearing her parents were dead at the hands of a stranger. But it does not make his disbelief of the truth any better. It does not help that, like Thor, she doesn't want to go into the details; doesn't want to burden him with the sadness Thor has had to endure these past years all alone. It doesn't matter, for now. 

They are both silent for a long moment; Jane runs through the evidence of what she has at her command, tries to adjust the variables in her experiment: his family is a sore point. Press it, and insist they’d hate her fucking him? Play it straight, and get this over with? She thinks that would be the way to go; he will not trust her more if she insists on agitating them, and their lives will be too short if she tries to force him.

The strange Asgardian — or Jotenheimien, whatever he is — peers at her, evaluating her. She wonders if he is a scientist in his own way, doing the same as she is. “Why did you give me back my hand?” He asks. This, she feels, is probably the first honest question that he has asked.

“I’ll level with you,” she says; he smirks as if he thinks that he has wormed his snake-like way into her good graces. Let him think it if it helps. She leans forward and says: "What we have in our veins – it’s dangerous.”

“All the best things are.” He sparks a bit of blue between his fingers; not as large as her sparks, but he's had his stone less time, and he is clearly learning.

“It’s dangerous _to you_.” She snaps her fingers. “The antimatter reproduces. _Quickly_. It can adapt, it can change you, but one day, we — even _you_ — will die. And what do you think happens to anti-matter when its containment explodes?”

He looks at her, face carefully neutral.

“Yeah, _kaboom_. Sooner or later, you or I will become an anti-matter beam, eating through the world around us. We’d become black holes.”

“Marekeith would be proud.” Loki chuckles. “Svartleheim’s revenge at long last.”

She lets it drop that such revenge has already come and gone. 

“There’s a way to — _might_ be a way to draw it out.” This part sounds ridiculous, even to her ears. “There’s a legend— “

“_A legend_.”

She thumbs through her phone, pulls out a bunch of old runes and shows it to him. She doesn’t bother to translate; he knows Asgardian better than she ever will. She watches his lips read through the whole prophecy: _when two beings of lesser worlds combine with Svartleheim’s might and space's shadow, the draw will pull through the air; when the dark penetrates the light, Svartleheim’s glory and time's shadow will fade. _

“Selvig found it,” she says. "Fortunately, this was in one of the few books that survived Ragnarok." Loki laughs.

“How did you decide this was the answer to your problems — or is it prayers?“ His lip curls in derision, as if he wasn’t the one who had promised Thor he would pay her a visit, sight unseen.

“There really isn’t another option.” She slowly unbuckles his other arm, aware that this is a risk she is taking, but she wants him to know she’d prefer he consent to this act, even if his consent is not, entirely, needed.

“There is _always_ another option.” He sounds like Thor at that, though she doesn’t think he realizes it. She isn’t as nice as she could be when she answers.

“Oh, there is. Humanity is tired of taking risks with idiots like us that anyone out there can just turn into a walking weapon. There are people out there monitoring us. You don’t consent, they’ll press the walls of this place in til we’re just a tiny squished up cube. Then they’ll drop that cube on the ocean floor or toss it into space.”

He smiles up at her, seemingly unbothered, but there’s a flash in those eyes. “Do you think you could aim for Jotenheim?”

“It’s not funny.” She takes a chance, admits something that she’s long been afraid of admitting, because she wonders, with the family that he has, if anyone has ever been honest to him without a million falsehoods beforehand. “I don’t want to die. We could save the world from ourselves.”

He is quiet for a long moment before he shrugs both his shoulders in one long, languid movement.

“Don’t even think you can run out the clock on that serum,” Jane whispers. “The metal this box is built to block any attempt to teleport out, even if you regain full control of the stone’s powers.”

Loki looks up at her; the look on the face is – thoughtful.

“I don’t like it either,” Jane says; he turns toward her as much as he can, still mostly bolted down.

“My dear Jane,” _Oh_, she does not like that at _all_, the oily way he says her name. “Whoever said I _minded_?”

He holds out his hand; she almost sags down into her chair in response. She understands he is doing this because he has his own reasons, but she doesn’t care, because this is better than the alternative. “Thank you, I— “

He holds up that same hand, and she realizes she has become relieved too soon. The look on his face glints with a certain pride to it, and she can tell he’s planning on making her life difficult.

“What will you offer me, for this privilege? I'd be giving up an awful lot, and I've no reason to trust _them._” She scoffs; the privilege of fucking him? Not much of a privilege. She might be an astrophysicist, but that doesn’t mean she’s dying to make love to every star-crossed alien who crosses her path.

“You can leave,” she says, hissing. “In _gratitude_ for giving up such a weapon, they’ve instructed me to tell you you can have your freedom. I can put you in contact with Thor, if you want. With the Asgardian remnant, if you want.”

“Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised Thor survived Ragnarok,” Loki murmurs. “Like a cockroach.” He isn’t the Asgardian that Jane would be reminded of a cockroach by but Jane knows well enough she can’t say that. Still, there's almost an affection in that tone, a warmth Jane doesn't poke too closely for fear that it will evaporate on her fingertips.

“And if I say no, it’s all…” He claps his hands together; the noise is loud in the high-pressure stakes, irritating.

“Yes, that’s right.” She doesn't like thinking about that much. 

"Hm. Rock and a hard place, isn't it?" He snickers. "What sort of argument do you have, Jane, for just why I should do this?" His hand touches her cheek and she avoids flinching. His blue stone-light irradiates her skin and she knows, she _know_s - he knows how she feels anyway, because he laughs softly in her face.

"Because you get to have sex with Thor's ex-girlfriend in front of a _bunch_of cameras," she snaps, and he laughs louder, almost baying in response. 

“Well. When you put it that way...” He puts his hand over hers, still chuckling. “Who am I to deny an ape a night of pleasure far beyond what she could ever have? Course it would be a lot nicer if I could use more than just my arms, dear _Jane_.”

That she thinks, is a bit too much, but she doesn’t comment on it, freeing him from his titanium cuffs instead. Click-Click. Every bit of metal falling convinces her she is making a mistake, but it doesn’t matter. If he kills her here, it just means that she won’t feel the pain of being compressed into nothingness by well-meaning but brutal saviors.

He gathers her in his arms, turns her away; she imagines it is so it is easier for him to imagine some other paramour. She hears him unzip something; like a human, she supposes, or Thor. She knows he’s not quite the same species as Thor, and she’s a little relieved to find out that the design is — essentially — universal. His finger goes to pet her, not bothering to exactly seduce her, but his fingertips are skilled.

“There we go,” he murmurs; he rocks against her pelvis, his fingertips glancing against her thighs, against her belly – he avoids the area that is most needed for this, but even through the heavy denim, she feels the spark of his anti-matter.

She slides away from him, unbuttons her oxford, hating that this is necessary; he hasn't bothered to do anything more than loosen his strange Asgardian pants. He looks at her, cool and unbothered. “How do you prefer this? On your back? On your stomach?”

She shimmies out of her oxford and she catches a mite of interest in his face; she isn’t wearing a bra and he’s evidently into breasts. He holds out a hand toward them but she stops him from reaching them, unbuttons her pants instead, revealing a harness.

He tilts his head, visibly confused.

“On your back,” she says. “_When the dark penetrates the light_.” She lets the Aether out, dark red and coating her body. She opens the small box that they’ve left in the room for her, shows him a dildo – glittery dark and red with a line of blue at its very tip. Someone in the props room has a sense of humor, and if things were not so grim, she would appreciate it.

A lot of these people were SHIELD back in New York, and she’s relieved they haven’t given her a huge cock to try to stuff into him, something painful that would hurt them both. It’ll be easier with this. She doesn’t look at him while she adjusts it on, which is at least, blissfully, easy. Slot A, tab B.

TO her surprise, he’s sitting on the table, legs crossed like he’s a femme fatale. He unhooks his shoes without even looking, sighs dramatically as each clunks onto the floor. “Let’s get on with it then,” he says.

She isn’t sure if it’s a trap or not, but he’s shimmied out of his pants and is lying on the bed he was constrained on without a hint of awkwardness about his nudity, beyond his cock being visibly only-semi-hard. “Do you want the restraints?” She asks, carefully. “It might – hurt, a bit.”

“Oh Jane,” he sighs. “Do you really think it’s my first time?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, because she doesn’t know what else to say to that. It's certainly her first time having ritualized sex to prevent herself from exploding. He snarls, mutters an insult that she forgets as soon as she grabs his thigh. The Aether rises in her; rises and flashes over her and she sees the blue of the time stone rising in him, rising and shining through his veins.

And then time disappears. Something instinctual rises in her, something that knows what to do; she hooks one of his legs over her leg, and positions a cock in a pale imitation of other men that she's slept with. They didn't give her lubrication; she mouths, wordlessly, _aw fuck_, but Loki, wordlessly, hands her something from one of his pockets; a little oil canister. He doesn't say what it is, but she knows its purpose. She smears it over her fingers, over the silicone cock. 

She murmurs the start of the ritual chant as she lubes his asshole; he tenses then forces himself to relax, though, she notes, with gritted teeth. She is careful, teasing the entrance slowly, circling his asshole several times before she sticks her fingers in.

"Courteous," he murmurs, and she rolls her eyes, then feels a bit sad about it; him commenting on it likely means someone didn't bother to do this in the past, and even Jane, Jane who has so much reason to hate him, can't quite bring herself to wish that upon him. They're more alike than she would have guessed several hours ago. She thumbs for the walnut-like wall that human men have so enjoyed, and is relieved to find it quickly; he hisses as she presses on it, lightly at first and then hard. She chants all the while, murmuring words selvig taught her in haste. She didn't ask for a translation.

"We need to open ourselves," he says, drolly; he might be translating. He holds out his palms, and she takes one, sparking blue palm. With the other, she slowly slides herself inside him; the fit is tight, and even Loki bites his teeth a few times during those opening thrusts. 

And then she becomes something beyond herself, something that is both Jane and not-Jane, both Loki and not-Loki; Jane feels herself moving, her hips moving, and by the time instinct fades and her mind comes back she is on top of him, and he is panting underneath her as her hips slowly cant into him, the words spilling from her tongue all the while.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, breaking the pattern; he sparks and murmurs something in a language she can’t catch, some part of the song she isn't privy to. His hand is on his cock, which is hard now, hard and strong and glowing blue as the rest of him, and that’s not normal, but nothing about this is normal, and she hopes no one out in the observation room is watching, but she just can’t stop moving, and she can’t figure out why until she realizes that she is feeling _Loki’s_ pleasure at it, that she is hitting whatever-the-extra-terrestrial-equivalent of a prostate is, and hitting it quite handily.

She takes a deep breath, running her hands over his thigh and pulling them further apart so she can lean inward and fuck him faster; the sooner this is over with, she thinks, the better.

And then it starts to work on her too, and she feels this pleasure burning inside her, which makes no sense because this strap-on isn't exactly rigged for her pleasure, but this is the most supernatural sex she's ever had and she wishes she could keep a copy of this video because she can imagine a whole bunch of variables to this for future tries — not that Loki will be the partner in any future try. Or that she'll have the Aether. Still. 

“Harder,” he snarls, and there is nothing she can say to that but to do what he wants; she puts her head down in a nod and pulls his hips forward; the Aether tells her what to do, her fingers holding up his ass as she moves her hips deeper and deeper, and he grins in what might be triumph and might just be him making the best of things. Either way, it feels almost sexy; she watches his so-noble features melt a bit in pleasure. 

With her closer, he reaches out, and touches a hand down her arm, and the hand to hand contact brings more of his space into her reality; a sense of curiosity, pleasure, wariness. She wonders what he is picking up from her and hopes not too much. Jane has never liked to be particularly vulnerable, especially with strangers. She is kind, and once, she was fast to trust, but that is not a trait she has anymore. Not after the snap, not after this. 

“Curiosity,” he pants, answering the question she didn't ask; she goes _deep_ on a thrust instinctually in response to what he wants and he winces in pleasure-pain. “You are full of _curiosity_. Now, _faster_.”

She moves faster, biting back the urge to tell him he’s too demanding; she shuts him up from any further comments by forcing him back down on the table, chasing his hands off his cock and pumping it herself. It's hard to get her hand around – he isn't packing anything less than Thor did, and Thor's proportions could accurately be described as Godly — but she makes the effort to try to keep the grip tight.

He cries out, a surprisingly vulnerable sounding noise, then looks up at her, mouth open in some forgotten statement. The Aether humming through her veins tells her what he can't say anyway: he's close, close.

“Come,” she orders, half-relieved and half-sorry, because this state of being is fascinating and she would like to explore it even if this state of being is with Loki, who she wouldn’t trust further than she could throw and being a run-of-the-mill, average scientist, she has always had a horrible throwing arm.

But that keen ability to observe that she's honed over years of telescope observation comes in handy; she can tell from the subtle shift in patterns in the Aether just how to get him close to the brink but not quite over. She moves away from his prostate twice before pressing back on it, teasing him because that’s what he likes; the connection formed through the Aether doesn’t allow him secrets.

And then she goes for the kill, and she’s merciless, because that’s what he wants, a lover who takes him over the edge, and she feels warmth building in her core too but its not enough, not enough to get her over the brink; she strokes him deeper, deep as she can with this silicone cock, and then – and then, simply put, time explodes.

Loki comes in a loud and wild wail, his head she thinks thrown back but she can barely see him because all she can see is red and blue antimatter; the room is thick with it and then the blue and red abruptly vanishes....and vanishes into _her_.

And its too much, too much; she whimpers, sudden pain as an awareness of reality and time and space slams into her, her awareness of Loki dimming but her knowledge of the vast emptiness of an uncaring universe expands into her, and even Jane, Jane who would have killed not five minutes ago to understand everything about the universe, is overcome. “No,” she whispers. It hurts.”

And then she hears the noise of shuffling feet, and feels her fellow prisoner in this cube pull her up; he’s behind her now, nuzzling on her neck. His fingers delicately remove the strap on and it falls, hitting the ground with a deafening _thunk_; then his fingers replace it, lightly stroking her at her core.

“Your prophecy was off a bit,” he says, and it sounds soft, kind. She leans into it despite knowing she shouldn’t, needing some form of human contact, even if the contact she’s leaning against isn't very human at all. His long finger glides over her clitoris, and she whines, because his finger is cold and his finger is pressing too hard but she is still wet and she needs something, something to think on that isn’t the vast amounts of empty space in the universe, how much of it is simply _void._

“Stay with me,” he murmurs; he rubs her clit with a well-practiced rhythm, and she moves her hips, leaning into it. “Talk to me, you mouthy ape.”

“Not…ape.” She leans back against him and he chuckles.

“Not _just_ an ape, perhaps,” he admits, and she wonders if it's her imagination or if there really is some affection in his voice for her. She misses him, suddenly; she does not trust Loki but she is alone in this universe, so alone, and after being near-fused to him the loneliness is so sad she wants to cry.

“You aren’t alone,” he murmurs. She tries to concentrate on his fingers; he really is quite good at this, playing her like a violin with little circles and half-circles. She leans back against him, rubbing a rapidly hardening cock as he makes a song bask over her skin. He has her almost to the point of snapping before he pushes her forward, shoving her half-onto the table he has already come all over, and she mutters half a protest before he kicks her legs further apart. _Oh_. Oh, she wants to say, but she can't. She can only cry out as he re-aligns himself, needy for the most primal of connections.

He takes himself home in one long, long stroke; he’s big and even wet, there’s a stretch and a burn to him that she knows she’ll feel in the morning, possibly several mornings, but that feels like a meaningless complaint against the entropy of the universe burning through her head.

“You can pretend I’m him, if you like,” Loki snarls. “Plenty of my lovers have.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, because what else is there to say to him than that? She might have asked if he tried not being an asshole a few hours ago, but that was before she held the universe inside her. His issues with his brother seem so small, so petty now; her issues with him seem so small, so petty now. There is nothing to Jane but _everything_ and she is _burning. _He rocks back and forth against her, surprisingly gentle, keeping time with his fingers against her clit. His hand that isn't focused on pressing her button roams her body, carefully teasing, touching.

“Come,” he whispers, then he nibbles at her neck. “Come for your _God_,” he mutters, and she wants to say that he is not her God, but she doesn’t, caught in the waves of the Aether that spill from her.

It starts with a trickle, then it builds, and builds. He rocks into her and Aether and antimatter spill out, dissipating into the ground.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s _it_.”

She moves against him, buoyed by the feeling that every thrust makes her a little less alone; every move makes more aether and antimatter come out and soon her hips move fast, rising to meet him and letting him go deep.

“I see why my brother enjoys your quim so, Jane,” he says, half-panting into her shoulder, his dark hair falling over her neck.

“Shut up about Thor,” she says, and he laughs into her skin, goes deep into her as he can, pumping and pumping, and she slams against him needing more, more. He isn't bad at this, not bad at _all_, and maybe it's just the universe that is frying her from inside out but she loves him for the moment, loves his cock and loves his skin as he slaps against her in a most primal act. 

“Music to my ears, sweet Jane,” he mutters, and kisses her ear. She whines and grunts something that isn't even half as clever as she can be, because there is nothing left to her but instincts, her hips flailing, the aether sparking, and the cock of a man she isn't sure is trustworthy buried deep inside her, and the universe leaking out of her; he pulls her tight against him, fingers snapping her violin strings. She calls out his name in a rough, desperate whirl: “Loki!” He gasps, and the world goes white as he comes and she comes with him.

The Aether leaves her in a rush, dissipating into nothing. It happens in an instant, so fast that she feels the loss of it. He sags away from her and she hears him hastily recollecting his pants, visibly uncomfortable with nudity. She doesn’t blame him and quickly does the same. She doesn’t bother to recollect the strap on belt or the silicone cock; those she shoves into a trash bin to make it a little easier for whatever poor lab assistant has to clean this up. She’s been there. He doesn’t bother to clean anything at all. There's the royal in him, she supposes. She can't see any proof of the stones, but she can tell her Aether is gone.

"It's gone," he murmurs; she looks up, nods. 

She expects they’ll talk after that but they don’t, not really; he knocks on the door like a prince demanding to be let out before she isn't even dressed, though she notes the avenger crew doesn’t bother to open it until she's waiting, too. They are no doubt running tests of some sort to verify the stones and their disappearance, but Jane is tired, the once-familiar Aether pulled away from her, gone back, seemingly, to its dark world.

She is relieved. She misses it. She's too tired to decide which emotion she feels more.

They’re let out with dull warnings that Jane doesn’t pay attention to; she’s surprised they let Loki go as they let her go, but either the Avengers have bigger fish to fry or Thor has interceded on Loki's part again. They leave and Loki turns one way and she turns the other and when she turns around, he is gone.

And she thinks that is the end of it, she honestly does.

She goes back to her trailer – same old, same old. She stares at the latest problem she has on her whiteboard, math sprawling in every direction, and knows she should look at it but doesn’t. She barely manages to shrug off her shoes before collapsing on her little bed, and then she can't think of anything for several blissful hours of empty, empty sleep.

When she wakes up, she takes her time, soaking in a shower, making a damn good dinner before she goes back to staring at her algorithm. It takes a few moments of staring at it before she realizes, with surprise and almost as much horror, that someone else has already solved it, with a bright green marker, no less. He isn’t subtle. She wonders if this is a sort of thank you, or a warning, or an invitation. She’s sure she’ll find out in time.

But for the moment, she checks his math while she sips at her coffee. 


End file.
